Seth Dickinson

Seth Dickinson is an American writer of fantasy and science fiction, known for his 2015 debut novel The Traitor Baru Cormorant.

Career

Dickinson graduated from the University of Chicago, where he won the Dell Magazines Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing in 2011 for his short story "The Immaculate Conception of Private Ritter".^[1] He has published short fiction in Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, among others.^[2] He also contributed writing to video games, including Destiny: The Taken King (2015).^[3]

His debut novel The Traitor Baru Cormorant, a hard fantasy expansion of a 2011 short story, is about a brilliant young woman who, educated in the schools of the imperial power that subjugated her homeland, sets out to gain power to subvert the empire from within. It was published in September 2015 and was well received by critics. Publishers Weekly appreciated the "seductively complex", ambitious worldbuilding and the "subtle language" of Dickinson's "compelling, utterly surprising narrative".^[4] Niall Alexander, writing for Tor.com, characterized the novel as "one of 2015's very finest fantasies" and as "clever and subversive" in the vein of K. J. Parker's best works, highlighting its "intricately crafted narrative and character".^[5] At NPR, Amal El-Mohtar praised the "crucial, necessary" novel for its brutality in looking "unflinchingly into the self-replicating virus of empire", noting in particular the unexpectedly "viscerally riveting" portrayal of economic conflict.^[6] Dickinson has blogged about explicitly addressing issues around gender and feminism, race and homosexuality, as well as imperialism in the world of Baru Cormorant.^[7] In late 2015, Dickinson was working on a sequel: The Monster Baru Cormorant.^[8]

Works

Novels

• The Traitor Baru Cormorant, 15 September 2015, Tor Books, ISBN 978-0765380722. Published as The Traitor in the UK. Based on the short story "The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Her Field-General, and Their Wounds" (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 2011).

Short fiction

• "Worth of Crows" (2012)
• "Cronus and the Ships" (2013)
• "A Plant (Whose Name is Destroyed)" (2013)
• "Never Dreaming (In Four Burns)" (2013)
• "Testimony Before an Emergency Session of The Naval Cephalopod Command" (2013)
• "Morrigan in the Sunglare" (2014)
• "Sekhmet Hunts the Dying Gnosis: A Computation" (2014)
• "Kumara" (2014)
• "Our Fire, Given Freely" (2014)
• "A Tank Only Fears Four Things" (2014)
• "Anna Saves Them All" (2014)
• "Economies of Force" (2014)
• "Wizard, Cabalist, Ascendant" (2014)
• "Three Bodies at Mitanni" (2015)
• "Morrigan in Shadow" (2015)

Video games

• FreeSpace 2: Blue Planet (2010)
• Destiny: The Taken King (2015)

External links

• Official website
• Seth Dickinson on Twitter
• Seth Dickinson at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

References

1. "Past Winners". Dell Award. Retrieved 10 October 2015.
2. "Seth Dickinson". Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Retrieved 10 October 2015.
3. "About". Seth Dickinson. Retrieved 10 October 2015.
4. "The Traitor Baru Cormorant". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 10 October 2015.
5. Alexander, Niall (14 September 2015). "The Masquerade: The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson". Tor.com. Retrieved 10 October 2015.
6. El-Mohtar, Amal (27 September 2015). "Baru Cormorant Will Catch You Unawares". NPR. Retrieved 10 October 2015.
7. "The secret design of The Traitor Baru Cormorant". Seth Dickinson's blog. November 24, 2015. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
8. Seth Dickinson [sethjdickinson] (December 10, 2015). "14,000 words into another full draft of THE MONSTER BARU CORMORANT. I feel good! Maybe this will be the one!" (Tweet). Retrieved December 11, 2015.